Statement shows snub to N.Z. over N-ships

Press, 11 September 1986, Page 30

Statement shows snub to N.Z. over N-ships

PA Wellington Britain is making sure New Zealand knows it has been snubbed over its policy of barring nucleararmed or nuclear-capable warships. The British High Commission has sent to New Zealand news media a British Information Service statement outlining plans for a destroyer and an auxiliary ship from the Royal Navy task group to visit Fiji and Tonga this month. The statement lists the armament carried by H.M.S. Manchester, a type-42 guided missile air defence destroyer, and repeats that there are no plans for ships from the task group to visit New Zealand. The seven-ship task group, led by the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Illustrious, started an eight-month tour of duty in Asia, Australia, and the Indian Ocean in April. Included in the tour, named Global 86, is a Rimpac war-games exercise with United States and Australian ships. Both New Zealand and British officials said be-

fore the ships left Britain that no approach had been made to the New Zealand Government to arrange port calls by any of the ships. The British Information Service statement outlines the reasoning behind British visits to the Pacific. “In successive White Papers the British Government has reaffirmed its intention periodically to deploy naval task groups beyond the N.A.T.O. area,” the statement says. "The purpose of such deployments is to exercise with the forces of friends and allies and to demonstrate a Royal Navy presence in the areas to be visited. “The United Kingdom has close traditional links with the South Pacific. Britain’s interest is that this region should continue to be an area of stability and that it should remain firmly attached to the West. “As has already been announced, there are no plans for a visit by ships from the task group to New Zealand at the present time.”